Ninth Street access to be closed soon after Traffic Bridge debut

The City of Saskatoon’s proposed timing to restrict freeway access from the Nutana neighbourhood is being questioned.

On Monday, city council voted 8-2 to halt right turns from Ninth Street onto Lorne Avenue for one year to study its effect.

Council also backed a proposal from Coun. Cynthia Block, who represents Nutana, to wait until the rebuilt Traffic Bridge reopens.

The city’s transportation department plans to install the temporary barricade nine to 10 days after the bridge reopens in early October, director of transportation Jay Magus said in an email Thursday.

That upsets Ksenija Smiljic, who lives on McPherson Avenue, which intersects with Ninth.

Smiljic, who opposed the temporary closure and spoke against it at council on Monday, would like to see a longer period to allow motorists

I do not want to see this experiment hurting another street and if that’s the case, I won’t support a permanent closure.

to adjust to the new bridge.

“The problem I have is how it’s not being done properly and that’s what raises suspicions,” Smiljic said in an interview Thursday.

Smiljic, who helped gather signatures for a petition opposed to the closure, said she would like to see the city wait a year after the bridge reopens to close Ninth.

Smiljic feels the new Traffic Bridge will change traffic patterns in the neighbourhood, but it will take some time.

If the closure is scheduled for a year, then so should the lapse between the bridge reopening and the closure, she said.

Magus said the yearlong closure is not intended to allow traffic to adjust, but to give the city time to collect data and consult with the public.

He said he expects the change in traffic in response to the closure to be known within days, but did not offer a similar assessment of the Traffic Bridge reopening.

The city intends to study traffic along Ninth, McPherson and Melrose Avenue prior to the debut of the new bridge in September and after the bridge is reopened in early October. The exact opening date for the Traffic Bridge and the new Chief Mistawasis Bridge is not yet known.

The traffic will also be studied in the spring.

The data will be shared with residents in the summer and then city administration will report back to council next fall.

Smiljic said she and others still intend to push for a longer lag time for installing the barricade.

The closure would prevent vehicles from accessing the Idylwyld Freeway from Ninth and Lorne.

In an interview, Block said the city ’s approach makes “reasonable sense” to her.

She added she thinks the new Traffic Bridge will have a substantial impact on transportation, noting the pathways for cyclists and pedestrians to travel downtown.

“I do not want to see this experiment hurting another street and if that’s the case, I won’t support a permanent closure,” Block said.

Council rejected closing access to Lorne from Ninth in October 2007, then voted to install a barricade in May 2015, only to reverse that decision five months later.

Opponents of the closure have expressed frustration with the city since traffic volumes on Ninth are well below the threshold for a local road and average speeds are below 50 kilometres per hour.